Thursday, June 15, 2017

Interview with Paul Hansen and Linda Weste

A treat today for lovers of Ancient Roman
and Greek history, myths and legends, as well as politics, murder and intrigue.

Linda
Weste is an author, reviewer, editor, and teacher. Her
recent historical verse novel set in late Republican Rome, Nothing Sacred, won the 2016 Wesley Michel Wright Prize, and was
highly commended in the Fellowship of Australian Writers 2015 Anne Elder Award.
Weste reviews for online journals including Mascara Literary Review and Cordite
Poetry Review, teaches creative writing, and is Reviews Editor of TEXT. She has
a Doctor of Philosophy (Creative Writing) from the University of Melbourne.

Paul
Hansen has worked in law enforcement for 23 years
and is currently the Director for a criminal investigation unit. One of his
most interesting jobs was as head of international family law in the Federal
Attorney-General’s Department, where he ran the Australian Central Authority
for International Child Abduction and twice
represented Australia as head of delegation in The Hague. Paul also loves
writing stories –not just the standard stuff.
he love the small bits that you don’t normally find until you dig deep.
For him classical literature, and ancient writers like Herodotus, Hesiod,
Homer, and others, are great examples of this. Paul’s‘Last War of Gods and Men’
series – put all the myths and legends into a single tale – a tapestry – that
shows how everything was interwoven in a way that is easy for the modern reader
to digest, without having to spend years studying the classics in a University.
You can connect with Paul via his website,
Facebook and Twitter.

What is the inspiration for your current
book?

Linda: The historical fault line between the collapse of the Roman
Republic and the rise of the Imperium during the first century BCE has long
fascinated writers. I became fascinated with this period after discovering a
footnote about Clodia Metelli in a book of Catullan poetry. A German scholar had
mapped Clodia onto Catullus's 'Lesbia' in 1862. Clodia and her brother Clodius
Pulcher were born into the Claudii Pulchri, one of only twenty families who
guided senatorial policy, commanded the armies and governed the provinces in late
Republican Rome. The impression of Clodia and Clodius as firebrands – determined
to live by their own rules – inspired me to imaginatively bring to life the
vagaries of the period through their eyes and exploits in my current book, Nothing Sacred.

Paul: Sword of Olympus is the
first book in a five book series based on ancient writings and fragments dating
back to the 7th Century BCE. It details the civil war and split between
the Gods and Goddesses of Mount Olympus, a split which was reflected in the
mortal realm in a war between the many cities and tribes of ancient Greece –
and eventually culminated in the war with Troy. It is the thrill of
placing these myths and legends all together into a single coherent tapestry
which inspires me – and rediscovering small pieces of information and knowledge
that we have lost over time.

Bits like Helen of Troy was actually never
at Troy. The warrior Achilles and the Priam of Troy were not their real
names – but derogatory references or nicknames. How did Agamemnon become
king of Mycenae – when his family wasn’t originally in control of the city, and
as a child he was a fosterling without a kingdom? Where was the most
important family of ancient times during the war with Troy – the Hellenes,
after whom the Greeks (and the modern country of Greece) take their name?

Is there a particular theme you are
exploring in this book?

Linda: As a novel in verse, Nothing
Sacred offers a fresh way of knowing late Republican Rome through the
medium of poetry. It also differentiates its representation of late Republican
Rome from other historical novels set in this time, by not being solely about
the triumvirate leadership of Crassus, Caesar and Pompey. The theme I'm most
interested in is transgression – which is closely linked with desire, hence the
book's frequent use of sexual metaphors – metaphors that have been with us since
antiquity.

Paul: I wanted to tell the story of the myths and legends of Ancient
Greece, but in a way that the ancients themselves would have understood.
To them myth and wasn’t just a bunch of individual stories – it was
history! There was even a profession in the ancient world that set the
myths and legends into a historical frame – mythographer.

Which period of history particularly
interests you? Why?

Linda: Antiquity – but while I'm interested in what existing representations
of history tell me, I'm more interested in what they don't tell me; the facts
that aren't readily accessible are what I'm most curious to learn.

This curiosity shapes my view that historical
fictions can fill the gap between the pasts we are permitted to know and those
we wish to know.

Paul: I am interested in all history – but in particular areas that
converge with myth and legend, which after all is only history that we’ve
forgotten or remembered slightly differently.

What resources do you use to research your
book?

Linda: For Nothing Sacred I
undertook extensive research: Catullan poetry; Latin and Greek etymology;
numismatics; naming conventions; architecture and monuments; political
speeches; ancient place names and geographical boundaries; agricultural methods
and food preparation; festivals and artefacts; gender and sexuality; mythology
and religion; slavery; gladiatorial combat; and use of animals for pleasure and
show.

The many resources included digital
material for the study of girls and women in antiquity, classical libraries, museum
archives, a corpus of Latin inscriptions and a topographical dictionary of
Ancient Rome.

Paul: I try to track down as many original sources as possible – which
with Greek myth is a mix of translated ancient texts, fragments, and archaeology.

What is more important to you: historical
authenticity or accuracy?

Linda: I had to decide which approach – historicism or presentism – would
be best for my representation of late Republican Rome in Nothing Sacred. If I chose
an historicist approach – to honour historical actuality, authenticity and
factuality – I could risk making my representation of the times inflexible,
unresponsive to fiction's needs. If I chose a presentist approach – imposing
present-day attitudes on the past could stifle the 'otherness' of antiquity.

I faced the decision anew with each poem. In
'Gargantuan' for example, I recount – in the voice of the character, Cicero –
the killing of twenty elephants (an actuality). To do so, I had to think about
this death as a Roman of the times might (authenticity). But to engage today's
readers – who would likely view the killing with revulsion – and draw attention
to the significance of the incident for the times, I aestheticised the scene,
and made the language as beautiful and beguiling as I could.

Paul: I try for both. There is usually a way to turn the facts to
fit the story you want to tell – but you also have to be willing to let the
facts guide the story, and take you in directions you might not have originally
anticipated. For me that is the absolute joy of writing historical
fiction.

Which character in your current book is
your favourite? Why?

Paul: Dorus – king of the Hellenes. He is a complex character and
one that is almost completely forgotten in the modern myths, but he was the
founder of one of the three branches of ancient Hellenism – the Dorians.
He finds himself out of his depth, trying to live up to the memory of his
father, the warrior king Hellen (after whom the Hellenes are named) and having
to deal with the fact that his nephew Macedon (after whom the Macedonians are
named) has turned out to the a son of Zeus. Writing his internal struggle
was enjoyable.

The other character I really like is the Oracle
Dodona – she’s a mysterious and unknown factor, and is clearly reading from a
different papyrus scroll than everyone else. What else would you expect
from an Oracle?

Are you a ‘plotter’ or a ‘pantser’? How
long does it generally take you to write a book?

Linda:
I'm a plotter definitely. This book took several
years to research and write.

Paul: It generally takes me about a year to write – but a large part of
that is research. My books are also quite large – around 150K words each.

Which authors have influenced you?

Linda: For this work I was probably influenced most by Robert Graves – his
first rule of historical fiction is not to use your research, or at any rate to
use only a tenth of it. Graves warns
against ‘the temptation to stick in facts just because you’ve discovered them’.
In the best historical fiction, the reader can sense the presence of the
research that isn’t being used, out there in the shadows… the novelist’s
function according to Graves, is to take the research and convey impressions –
to go beyond the bare facts.

Paul: Sara Douglass; David Gemmell; Valerio Manfredi; Rick Riordan

What advice would you give an aspiring
author?

Linda: Research as much as possible and have a good reason for whatever
choices you make.

Paul: Research as much as possible – and map out all your key facts and
characters. Seek input and feedback on your writing – but don’t take no
for an answer.

Tell us about your next book or work in progress

Linda: The next book is an historical novel in verse – set in Melbourne
during World War Two. I'm interested in this as a period of complex social
change, for the Second World War engaged the entire Australian community in a
way that the Great War did not.

Paul: I’m currently working on book III in the series – The Dragon Throne (yes – they had
dragons in ancient Greece. The Oracle in Delphi is even named after one –
the great She-Dragon Delphyne!). The focus of the book is the brothers
Agamemnon and Menelaus – and how they move from being homeless youth to
retaking Mycenae from their uncle, and then bringing the rest of the Greek
Peninsula to heel. It wasn’t just armies – there was a lot of political
intrigue between the various cities, tribes – and even the Gods themselves.

They
may have been born privileged into the Claudii Pulchri family, but siblings
Clodius Pulcher and Clodia Metelli are firebrands: kindred spirits; brazen,
impetuous, headstrong; determined to live by their own rules.

Together
they incite the wrath of Rome’s elite - and in particular, Cicero. But nothing
is sacred in late Republican Rome - and rules keep changing when change
threatens to rule …

The
vagaries of the period are brought to vibrant life through the eyes and exploits
of Clodius and Clodia in this historical novel in verse.

From the city of Trachis, near the pass of Thermopylae, three kings set sail
for the holy island of Asteria and the gathering of kings called by the twin
temples of Apollo and Artemis, intent on foiling the plans of Atreus, king of
Mycenae, who seeks dominion over all the cities and kingdoms of the Aegean sea.

To the north, in the shadow of Mount Olympus, the hero Heracles looks to free
the besieged city of Elone, joining forces with the Centaurs to wage war
against the combined armies of Lapith and Dryopes warriors, who under the
command of the Strategos Coronus have been ordered to destroy the city of the
Hellenes.

While Hera, the outcast Queen of the Gods, strives to raise a new god to cast
aside the old, and will sacrifice the immortals of Pelasgia to achieve her
goal. Yet all the while the question remains, where are the other Olympians?

Against a backdrop of war and betrayal, a young man will struggle to understand
the power of the gods, and his role in the struggle to come. In an ancient
world of gods and heroes, the threat of war is rising… And if they are not
careful, the Dark Queen will sacrifice all to chaos.

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